I have been using the landscape as the source of ‘bio colour’ to create artworks that respond to that specific landscape; gathering materials such as rocks, seaweed, lichen, berries, industrial scraps, seawater, and bark and processing it into live inks and pigments. A couple of months ago I was commissioned to make colour from a Hawthorn Tree in Portmarnock, by a couple who had recently moved house and looked out at the tree daily. I hadn't gleaned colour from the Hawthorn before so it was really cool to research the role of the hawthorn through history. I found a lot of information surrounding its medicinal value, and local lore surrounding it's use since pagan times, but not so much about the colours we might get. I was rooting for something peachy and had an inkling it would react with iron to make a grey colour.
We waited until the hawthorn berries, also known as 'haws' had ripened (the texture on the inside of the berry is cream and dry rather than green and pasty) and then collected a jar. The Hawthorn tree sat in front of a small Neolithic ring fort and was surrounded by a whole ecosystem of plant life. There were, of course, a lot of nettles, dock leaves, and ivy had wrung itself around the entire backside of the trunk up into the gnarled branches. The branches themselves were home to sunburst lichen, also known as Xanthoria Polycarpa. I gathered small amounts of each, making sure not to take more than 10% from any one plant or branch, as well as a bunch of fallen branches. I brought them back to my studio where I processed them over a couple of weeks.
The colour locked within the haws, nettles, dock leaf tips, ivy and lichen was extracted through the process of soaking and reducing. The hawthorn twigs were charred in an open fire and then ground down into charcoal. The interaction of live colour is emphasised as I tweak ph levels and modify the vibrancy using oxides. Iron generally darkens the colour, especially where there is a large amount of tannin in the material. Alum creates a more chalky appearance. As I test each colour solution on paper the drying process often appears to suspends the works between solid and liquid. This tinkering connects my work with the ephemeral nature of the landscape.
All in all, I harnessed 15 colours from the hawthorn and it's surrounds. The palette contained deep autumnal hues from muted greens to deep oranges. Interestingly the dock leaf and hawthorn gave off similar colours. The charred hawthorn branches seemed similar to that of oak trees, but perhaps harder to grind into a fine dust.
The process of harnessing colour from the environment acts as an invitation to explore landscape. I am shifting my work towards more sustainably-centered approaches, both ecologically and economically. The act of searching for colour forces me to address environments with a bold investigation and is as much part of my process as the resulting palette.
The inks pooled and soaked into the paper causing ripples and dips which directed the flow of the colour across the page. This was reminiscent of the ripples left on the beach after the tide has gone out which connected the piece to the sandy shore of Portmarnock.
The overlapping layers appear to dance across the page; intertwining gradients coming in and out of focus, mirroring the thorny branches of the tree. Up close detailed alchemic processes are frozen on the page. nettle, iron, dock tips and charcoal dripped together, splashed across the paper. Soft ivy tones misted atop each. Usually one piece emerges as the clear finished work, and the other sheets simply as a place to test colour and layering, but this time there are two successful works. They're both exciting to look at, and successful in their own ways. There are similar strokes but the density of colour bounces across the page differently in each.
Colour commissions are something I would love to explore more. The resulting paint and inks can be used in a finished work on canvas or paper. It is a unique way of preserving landscapes and the special moments that occur within them. If you’re interesting in commissioning a specific landscape or plant get in touch, i’d love to hear from you!
Tabhair Aire
Kari